Chemical Engineering & Technology, Vol.31, No.3, 377-383, 2008
Hydrophobic modification and regeneration of Shirasu porous glass membranes on membrane emulsification performance
The effect of hydrophobic modification and regeneration of Shirasu porous glass (SPG) membranes was systematically investigated on the monodispersity of emulsions. The results showed that the hydrophobic modification and regeneration of SPG membranes had little influence on the monodispersity of emulsions, no matter how many modification and regeneration runs were operated. The emulsification runs affected the emulsification performance to a certain extent when hydrophobically-modified SPG membranes were used for preparing water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions repeatedly. However, they almost did not affect the emulsification performance when regenerated hydrophilic SPG membranes were used for preparing oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions. The SPG membranes could be used repeatedly after hydrophobic modification or regeneration with almost the same emulsification performance as fresh or freshly-modified ones. The results provided some valuable guidance for the repetitive use of SPG membranes to prepare monodisperse O/W and W/O emulsions.